In the late 1970s, Saturday morning television was mostly commercials disguised as cartoons, with poor writing, no connection to the community and lots of animals hitting each other over the head.

Then came "Buster and Me," which gave kids something they weren't used to: local television that was entertaining but also took chances.

"There was a bed-wetting episode. We dealt with racism, by doing a sort of parody of the Ku Klux Klan once," said Robin Goodrow, who wrote episodes, worked as a puppeteer and was the only human regular. "We dealt with conflict resolution and world peace and divorce. We dealt with issues that you did not see on a regular kids show."

"Buster and Me" began on KRON in 1979, when the station made a move for more educational programming. Goodrow played the single parent of the chimpanzees Vanilla (voiced by Goodrow) and Buster (voiced by Christopher Pray). Buster's orangutan friend Russell was voiced by the late John Gilkerson.

The original episodes had no commercials, so the cast had to scrounge to create sets and puppets that didn't look cheap.

"Because we didn't sell anything to kids, we had no budget," Goodrow said. "I'd go to other people's houses and say 'Excuse me, can I borrow that?' I was stealing props everywhere I went."

While the puppeteers didn't get rich, they were allowed to tackle challenging subjects.

"They left us alone because they didn't have a lot of worries about money," Pray said. "They didn't have any sponsors so we got a tremendous amount of leeway."

The show piled up awards during its eight-year run, but finally stopped producing original episodes in 1987. "Buster and Me" continued in re-runs on KRON until a few months ago.

Goodrow went on to create the rabbit puppet series "Bingo and Molly" for The Learning Channel, and recently released "Amazing," a music album for kids that she co-wrote with her brother Micheal. She still makes appearances in the Bay Area, along with Vanilla, for her show "From Socks to Success" -- about Goodrow's challenges learning to read as a teen.

"I take kids through my own story," Goodrow said. "I started with a sock, went behind a stage and did a puppet show and ended up doing television."

Goodrow recently married Brian Navelle, who played a potential suitor in two "Buster and Me" episodes and voiced characters in "Bingo and Molly."

Pray lives in Suisun Valley and can be seen in movies including "The Candidate," "American Graffiti" and the Dirty Harry film "Sudden Impact."

"Buster and Me" was never seen beyond the Bay Area, but the Buster puppet (and Pray's voice) was seen and heard in the 1993 film "Mrs. Doubtfire," which starred San Francisco resident Robin Williams and was filmed in the Bay Area.

Pray said Buster and Williams had the crew in hysterics, and director Christopher Columbus had to call out "Cut!" several times because people on the set were laughing.

Ironically, "Mrs. Doubtfire" ended with Williams' character and Buster co- starring in a new children's show, even though it was years after the last kids show premiered in the Bay Area.

"It was really wonderful," Pray said. "That was the closest Buster ever came to being Robert De Niro."